The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is about to release frightening projections on the impact of climate change. Among those projections is the displacement of hundreds of millions of people, a slide in crop yields, and increased deaths from heatwaves.

Bernie Fraser heads the Climate Change Authority. The man who ruthlessly bore down on inflation just as Australia was recovering from the early 1990s recession knows everything about acting in the country's long-term interests. But few others seem to.

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''I am not out to scare the pants off anybody here, and I don't want to insult your intelligence with suggestions that climate change is a load of crap,'' he told the National Press Club this month. ''But if policymakers accept the science and its implications, you would expect them to follow through.''

The science says any increase in global average temperatures of more than 2 degrees compared with pre-industrial levels is ''getting into the dangerous category''. We are already halfway there, and there's only a limited amount of carbon and equivalent gasses we can release before we get there - our so-called ''carbon budget''.

We are using it up at too fast a rate to hold the increase to 2 degrees. All is not lost if we pull back. The sooner we pull back gently, the less sharply we will have to pull back later.

That was the message in the Climate Change Authority's report on targets released on March 5. Its finding was that Australia should lift its target for cutting emissions from 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 to 19 per cent. Making that steeper cut now will avoid a much steeper cut later.

Much of what the report suggests is easy. Adopting tougher motor vehicle emissions standards of the kind already in place elsewhere would cut running costs as well as emissions. And soon there will no longer be a local vehicle-building industry to object.

Another suggestion is to simply buy extra emissions reductions from other countries. They are going cheaply at the moment, and 2020 is looming too soon to bring about all the cuts in Australia. The globe doesn't mind where they take place.

So far, the Coalition has been unaccountably hostile to the idea, presenting the purchase of cuts from overseas as a sort of moral failing. But we trade with other nations all the time and, for the moment, it's the only way to do what's needed.

But it was the reactions to his report that shocked Fraser. He wasn't surprised by those of business - except by their scale and brazenness - but he was surprised by those of the government. ''It is the government's job to protect community interests,'' he says. ''Every politician pledges to do just that in the lead-up to every election campaign that I have heard.''

Instead, the government plans to abolish the Climate Change Authority. While not disputing the science, it shows no interest in lifting Australia's emissions reduction target. It wants to remove the carbon tax and is prepared to underfund the Emissions Reduction Fund that will replace it. It wants to axe the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and wind back the renewable energy target.

If it believes the science - and it says it does - its thinking is unaccountably short term, unless you consider the three-yearly electoral cycle.

If an entire nation was sleepwalking towards catastrophe, it would be politically risky to wake it up. Could an entire nation - perhaps the entire globe - sleepwalk towards catastrophe?

Al Bartlett thought so. He was professor emeritus in nuclear physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Before he died last year, he spoke to the BBC's More or Lessradio program, which deals with statistics, as did the interview.

''Steady growth means doubling over a certain period of time,'' he told More or Less. ''Suppose you have bacteria that double in number every minute. Now suppose you put one of these bacteria in an empty bottle at 11am and then observed that the bottle was full at midday.

''At what time was the bottle half full?''

The surprising answer is 11.59am - just one minute before midday because the bacteria are doubling every minute.

''Now, if you were an average bacterium in the bottle, at what time would you first realise you were running out of space?'' he asked.

The answer might not even be one minute before it was too late. ''After all, at one minute before 12, the bottle was half full; at two minutes before 12, it was only a quarter full; and at five minutes before, it was only 3 per cent full, with 97 per cent of open space just yearning for development.

''At five minutes before 12, how many of you would realise there was a problem?''

How many of us would realise we were sleepwalking towards catastrophe?

148 comments

Keep writing Peter, but this regime isn't listening.Not only are they not listening, they are deliberately ignoring the science. That this Govt doesn't even have a Ministry for Science reflects their creationist ideology.God provided "us" with those trees just waiting to be logged by the ultimate conservationists, and so too "he" creates our weather and climate.It will be an hour past midnight before this lot addresses CC.It's up to us to snob our noses to overt consumerism and filthy coal. Until we change the community's mindset we haven't any hope of the ideologues acting in our interest. This very paper still proudly boasts of increased Retail Sales, till the reverse is true "midnight" gets closer by the day.It's up to us to make for change.

Commenter

A country gal

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 5:37AM

Our government is pandering to the lowest common denominator of voters who refuse to believe the science because they think they know better and hate the solution because it will infringe on their percieved right to do whatever they want. There's simply no arguing with wrong headed people as they won't see and hear what they don't agree with.

Commenter

cmasters

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 6:19AM

The sky is falling....the sky is falling...the sky is falling...the sky is falling...

Commenter

The Other Guy

Location

Geelong

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 6:20AM

+1

Commenter

Bg2

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 6:32AM

Too right! I live in the country north of the Hunter Valley. Never seen so many logging trucks loaded up and shipping out since the O'Farrell govt got in. A procession. I am hopeful they are all plantation . . . perhaps wishful thinking.The Abbott govt has to get fair dinkum, change its policy to something credible and market based. Direct Action is catchy nonsense and we all know it. A useless political slogan that will not drive down emissions or change our polluting habits. High time the LNP ended its recriminations got some vision, stopped treating the electorate like morons and did more than pander to big end of town for their own short term political benefit.

Commenter

Danger Ranger

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 6:46AM

In the world according to TA, it's fine because God won't let it happen to us. After all he gave us this earth and its riches for us to use at our pleasure. Why would he take it away?!

Commenter

dfb

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 7:28AM

I am ready to believe; but for simple proof, I need to see those people who tell me it's there's crisis, actually acting like there's a crisis. -Instead of pontificating from private jets/limos/mansions about more taxes/less jobs for the poor.... to save the world, no less.

7 years after the Al Gore hysteria, he has made millions of dollars and jets about, yet none of his doomsday predictions have come true<

So, 'fear' & 'scare' campaigns can make a gullible public pay attention and more tax, but now the world has wised up to the climate ponzi schemes.... thank goodness we kept our heads while all those around us were losing theirs....

Minimising pollution is good. Nixon had the right idea when he started the EPA all those years ago; he's the true 'planet saver'!

Commenter

marky

Location

beach

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 7:35AM

Danger Ranger the irony is that the Price on Carbon and an ETS is market based, Aboat himself called for a "Simple Tax" (still on utube).The reality is they don't want any action, DA was dreamt up by a Spin DR. Even my died in the wool conservative voting, conservationist friends (very close ones) call it a reinvention of the Green Army. Basically work for the dole with little environmental reward, their training time provides these 'foot soldiers' with only a month in the field. One of these friends sits on a National Board that may at least gets some funds from the idiotic scheme, the particular org already does carbon offset and rehabilitation work for major polluters- but he is the first to say DA will deliver no tangible effects on tackling CC.This is not a left/right issue even though some view it as one, it's about our future.Global issues of this proportion should be bi partisan not political point scoring.Ironically, there's a lot of dosh to be made in the renewable sector and right through from inception, manufacturing, logistics to installing, servicing etc . BP saw the writing, they've been making PV panels since the word go.But sure enough the deniers will continue on their merry way to castigate science and common sense. Just read here today for proof of that ......

Commenter

A country gal

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 7:44AM

"Against stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain", Friedrich von Schiller (1759 -1805)Maybe, just maybe, if the proven facts of human-caused climate change are repeated calmly enough and often enough then, perhaps, just perhaps, those in power who can make a change will take a few steps in the right direction. In Australia, we have just had the hottest year on record - ever! We are still experiencing the worst drought on record - ever, in Queensland and northern New South Wales. This is not polemic. This is not exaggeration. It is real and it is happening now. The facts are unattractive, the facts are frightening, the facts are hard, but they are the facts.

Commenter

David

Location

Northcote

Date and time

March 25, 2014, 8:01AM

@ marky and the other guy: your ignorance is astounding, much like our current PM's. The predictions of global warming scientists ARE being realised...please don't make me walk you through the devastating changes that have and are occurring. Just because they may not be evident from your backdoor doesn't mean they aren't occurring, do some research.

And there is another unchecked phenomenon that will devastate the planet more surely than man-made global warming: human population growth. Only China has had an attempt at dealing with this and there is no sign any other nation will. Humans will occupy, harvest and farm every square metre of habitable and arable land and biodiversity will be reduced to almost nothing. What a fantastic world we have to look forward to.